Frederick John Inman (28 June 1935 – 8 March 2007) was an English actor and
singer best known for his role as Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served?,
a
British sitcom between 1972 and 1985. He was also well known in the
United Kingdom as a
pantomime dame.

Born in 1935, Inman made his stage debut aged 13. He worked in retail in
London as a
young adult and after four years left to earn his
Equity Card. He made his
West End debut in the 1960s, and his television debut in an episode of
A Slight Case of ... entitled The Enemy Within in 1965, next
appearing in an episode of
Two in Clover in 1970. After a successful pilot of Are You Being
Served?, Inman played the
camp
Mr. Humphries in the sitcom from 1972 to 1985. This role made him a household
name and won him awards, including BBC TV Personality of the Year. In his
later years, Inman became a well known pantomime dame. He died of
hepatitis
in 2007, aged 71.

Inman was born in 1935 in
Preston,
Lancashire,[1]
and was often said to be a cousin of actress
Josephine Tewson, though she has denied they are related. (They did,
however, play half-siblings in the 1977 sitcom Odd Man Out.) At the age
of 12, Inman moved with his parents to
Blackpool
where his mother ran a
boarding house, while his father owned a hairdressing business.[1]
As a child, he enjoyed
dressmaking.[2][3]
He was educated at Claridge House in Preston, and then a
secondary modern.[2]
Inman always wanted to be an actor, and his parents paid for him to have
elocution
lessons at the local church hall.[1]
At the age of 13 he made his stage debut in the Pavilion on Blackpool's
South Pier, in a melodrama entitled Freda.[1]
Aged 15, he took a job at the pier, making tea, clearing up and playing parts
in plays.[4]

After leaving school, Inman worked for two years at Fox's, a gentlemen's
outfitters in Blackpool, specialising in
window dressing.[2]
Aged 17, he moved to
London to
join retailer
Austin Reed in
Regent Street.[1]
Four years later, he left Austin Reed to become a scenic artist with
Kenneth Kendall's touring company at a theatre in
Crewe,[3]
so that he could earn his
Equity Card,[1]
required at the time for professional actors.[5]

Inman made his
West End debut in the 1960s when he appeared in
Ann
Veronica at the
Cambridge Theatre.[4]
He also played in
Salad Days at the
Windmill Theatre in 1975, and as Lord Fancourt Babberley in
Charley's Aunt at the
Adelphi Theatre in 1979. He also played in many summer shows, and
established himself as a
dame in
pantomime,
appearing regularly as one of the two ugly sisters alongside comedian
Barry Howard.[3]
His other stage appearances included his own show Fancy Free and
Pyjama Tops,
My
Fat Friend and Bedside Manners.

Inman made his television debut in the sitcom A Slight Case Of... in
1965, then in 1966 he appeared in two episodes of the BBC sitcom
Hugh and
I then in 1970 he appeared in one episode of the ITV sitcom
Two in Clover. In 1972, he was asked by
David Croft to play a part in a
Comedy Playhouse pilot called
Are You Being Served?.[1]
This was a sitcom set in a
department store, written by Croft with
Jeremy Lloyd, and based on the latter's experiences working at
Simpsons of Piccadilly.[2]
Playing a minor role with only a few lines, he was soon asked to "camp it up",[2][4]
despite initial reluctance from the BBC to include such a camp character. The
pilot was broadcast in September 1972. The broadcast was followed by the
five episodes of the
first series in early 1973. The first series showing opposite
Coronation Street on ITV attracted little attention, but repeats later
that year were very successful.[2]

Inman played the
camp
Mr. Wilberforce Claybourne Humphries and his earlier career in the clothes
retail business was good preparation for this role in a menswear department.
Inman developed a characteristic limp-wristed mincing walk,[3]
and a high-pitched
catchphrase, "I'm free!", which soon entered popular culture.[6]
Inman reported that four or five members of the group
Campaign for Homosexual Equality picketed one of his shows in protest as
they believed his persona did not help their cause. Inman said that "they
thought I was over exaggerating the gay character. But I don't think I do. In
fact there are people far more camp than Mr. Humphries walking around this
country. Anyway, I know for a fact that an enormous number of viewers like Mr.
Humphries and don't really care whether he's camp or not. So far from doing
harm to the homosexual image, I feel I might be doing some good".[7]
Both Inman and David Croft stated that the character was "just a mother's
boy", and that his sexual orientation was never explicitly stated.[1]
Inman continued to play in live shows after his success as Mr. Humphries, and
began to incorporate camp mannerisms to those performances too, once saying
"Even when I'm not playing Mr Humphries, say at a summer season, I camp it up
a bit. If I don't the audience are disappointed".[7]

Are You Being Served? ran for 10 series until 1985. At its height,
in the mid to late 1970s, it regularly attracted British audiences of up to 22
million viewers.[3]
Inman's portrayal of Mr Humphries won him the BBC TV Personality of the Year
in 1976 and he was voted the funniest man on television by
TV Times readers.[8]
The series also became popular in the United States, where Inman became a gay
cultural icon.[4]
Once, in
San Francisco, a passing cyclist spotted Inman and fell off his bicycle in
surprise, crying "Mr Humphries, I love you!"[4]

From 1980 to 1981, Inman also played Mr Humphries in the
Australian version of Are You Being Served?, the only cast member
of the original Are You Being Served? series to do so. He made many
appearances on BBC TV's long running television show,
The Good Old Days.

During the 69-episode, 13-year run of Are You Being Served?, Inman
also appeared in the
1977 film of the series, in which the characters visited the fictional
Spanish holiday resort of "Costa Plonka".
Odd Man Out (1977), his own sitcom, Inman played the owner of a
fish and chip shop who inherits half of a
rock factory; and
Take a Letter, Mr. Jones (1981), a sitcom in which Inman played Graham
Jones, who is secretary to
Rula
Lenska's character Joan Warner. Inman also toured with his own shows, and
he released several records, including "Are You Being Served, Sir?", which
reached number 39 in the UK singles charts. This came from an LP of the same
name, and was followed by two further albums: I'm Free in 1977 and
With a Bit of Brass in 1978, the first two issued by DJM Records.

He made a cameo appearance in the film
The
Tall Guy (1989), and was one of five of the Are You Being Served?
cast to be reunited in character for the sitcom
Grace & Favour (titled Are You Being Served? Again! in the
United States), which ran for twelve episodes in 1992 and 1993. Inman had a
small part as Lady Capulet in the film
Shakespeare in Love (1998) and appeared in the 1999
French and Saunders Christmas special. He appeared as Father Chinwag
in the film The Mumbo Jumbo (2000).

After the end of Are You Being Served?, Inman became one of the
nation's best known
pantomime dames and appeared in over 40 pantomimes across the
United Kingdom.[8]
He also toured
Australia,
starring in a number of productions including Bedside Manners (2003)
and a revival of Are You Being Served? (2001) as a stage show at
Twelfth Night Theatre,
Brisbane.
In 2004, Inman made additional television appearances in
Doctors and Revolver.

He lived in a
mews house in
Little Venice for 30 years.[2]
On 23 December 2005, Inman entered into a
civil partnership at
Westminster
Register Office with his partner of 33 years (at the time),
Ron Lynch.[4][9][10]

Inman suffered from poor health in his later years. He was hospitalised
with
bronchitis in 1993, and collapsed on stage in 1995.[11]
He was admitted to
Paddington's
St Mary's Hospital in 2001 after suffering breathing difficulties and
spent three days in intensive care.[9]

In December 2004, Inman was forced to cancel an appearance in a pantomime
as he was reportedly suffering from a
hepatitis A infection, allegedly contracted from contaminated food.[12]
Following this, he never worked again and it was claimed that he suffered
complications from this infection for the rest of his life.

Inman died early in the morning of 8 March 2007, aged 71, at St. Mary's
Hospital, Paddington, London,[13]
of the infection.[14]
His body was cremated at
Golders Green Crematorium after a funeral on 23 March 2007.[15]

It was reported in July 2007 that Inman had left nearly his entire estate,
including more than £2.8m, to his civil partner Ron Lynch. The only other
portion of his estate given to another, was a £5,000 bequest to the
Entertainment Artistes Benevolent Fund. The Daily Mail newspaper
said at the time that Inman's "estate is believed to be the highest profile
will of a gay man in a civil partnership since the ceremonies became legal in
2005".[16]